For more information on John von Neumann's relevant work, see his article "Probabilistic Logic and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisation from Unreliable Parts." Collected Works, Vol. 5, A.H. Taub, Editor (Pergamon Press, 1961-1963). The article also appears in Automata StudiesAnnals of Mathematics Studies, C.E. Shannon and J. McCarthy, Editors (Princeton University Press, 1956). He describes this issue also in "Principles of Large-Scale Computing Machines," Collected Works, Vol. 5, reprinted also in Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 3, (Princeton University Press, July 1981). For a fascinating account of his work on the brain, see The Computer and the Brain, John von Neumann, et al. (Yale University Press, November 2000)http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0300084730/javaworld

The Ninja project at Berkeley aims to define a highly robust infrastructure for Web services, using Java. At the core of Ninja is a cluster, which provides high availability and scalability for serviceshttp://ninja.cs.berkeley.edu/